NYE mani

I know this is a bit late, but I was on holidays....

As soon as I unwrapped OPI Rainbow Connection on Christmas morning, I knew I wanted to wear it for NYE. So I chose to layer it over black for a more striking effect and because I was too lazy to build it to opacity on its own :P

Festive Nubbins

I couldn't let Christmas go by without wearing this little beauty I found at a Hot Dollar store!

This is Easy Paris Cosmetics in the shade #026 and it has large hexagonal, slightly holographic green and gold glitter interspersed in small silver hex and round glitter in a sheer green base.

I was feeling rather festive while I was picking out a base colour and decided to do alternate both my Christmas favourites.

The green nails are two coats of China Glaze Emerald Sparkle, with one coat of the green hex glitter, and the red is two coats of China Glaze Ruby Pumps, with one coat of OPI Gettin' Miss Piggy with it.

It's just rolled over to Christmas morning in Sydney, so Merry Christmas from down under, i'm off to get some sleep!

Ulta3: Summer Siren Selection

Still working through my sample bags from the ABBW, I received a selection of four polishes from Ulta3's Summer Siren collection.

I was given Orchid, Mermaid Green, Sunset Pink and Blue Marlin.

Orchid is my pick of the bunch. It's a beautiful purple shimmer with a slight gold duo-chrome flash which looks way more expensive on the nail than it's $2.25 price tag. It also has a lovely formula that is opaque in two coats.

Mermaid Green is a murky blue green creme which i'm currently wearing on my nails. Seemed to fit with the nasty 'summer' weather we've been experiencing in Sydney lately :P

Sunset Pink is bright! If you're after a cheery, blue based, two coater pink that's cheaper than your morning coffee you'll want to snap this one up.

Blue Marlin was definitely the problem child. It is a lovely bright royal blue however the formula was not so good.

If you look at my swatch of Blue Marlin closely, you will see how patchy the coverage is on my index nail. Also, opening this polish gave me a bit of a shock!

I couldn't get this one back into the bottle without trimming off the bit sticking out the side...

As much as I love the colours of these polishes, I was rather disappointed with the quality. Ulta3 has been my go to brand for cheap and cheerful polish however this experience coupled with some other changes the brand has undertaken recently, have caused me to search for other polish brands.

While Ulta3 have kept the size of their bottles the same, the glass at the base has been thickened,  reducing the amount of polish in their bottles from 13.5ml to 13 ml. They have also moved the manufacture of their polish from Australia to China. Pity, I really liked the idea of buying aussie made and owned polish.

Below I have included a picture of two new style Ulta3 bottles (left) with two old style bottles (right) to show the changes made to the bottles.

*Some products included in this post were provided to me for consideration*

Orly Seagurl and Sweet Peacock

Hello readers! I thought that I would show you some of the goodies I was given at the Maxted Thomas.PR pre gala dinner event I attended as part of the ABBW.

One of the brands who were represented was Orly, who were doing free manicures to promote their Mineral FX collection and Gel FX. So I had my very first manicure not done by myself.

Clumsy Julia managed to whack her finger on the bottom of the table when she sat down for dinner, so please ignore the whoopsie on my middle finger, totally my fault.

This is Rococo A-Go-Go from the Mineral FX collection, a deep purple with a slight duo-chrome effect.

Then I got to bring home a gift pack with two polishes from the current Birds of a Feather collection.

After playing with them a bit, i've decided that the Orly brush is my favourite that i've used so far. It's a little like a China Glaze brush but less floppy.

Seagurl was the first one I tried. The formula was good, and it is definitely unique in my collection, but it looks a little too sophisticated on me in my opinion.

My favourite was Sweet Peacock! It is a lovely electrical blue metallic shades with flecks of silver throughout. This is going to get a lot of wear through summer :)

I wore this one as a full mani for a full week before it started to chip.

*These products were provided to me for consideration*

Illamasqua Propaganda w. Northern Lights

I wasn't too fussed about Propaganda with it being rather uneven and a bit boring (i.e not sparkly enough)  for my taste, but I wanted to get some idea of the wear time for Illamasqua polishes.  Then I remembered this post from a few months ago on the lovely Vita's blog and I had myself a mani!

I think the uneveness of the base makes this more like the night sky too.

This lasted 3 days before I got a few chips, and then the naughty polish picking monster reared its ugly head :P

Bad, bad blogger + IMATS haul swatches

Hello lovely readers! I am very sorry for my lack of posts lately. 

Despite having the time of my life at the ABBW, the event has left me feeling totally overwhelmed! Writing such a small and specialised blog, meeting 80+ gorgeous beauty bloggers and seeing the quality of their work makes me feel rather inadequate. Don't get me wrong, it was an amazing experience mingling with brand representatives and meeting the ladies behind some of the blogs I love to read but I think it was a little too soon for me to attend an event on that type of scale, being such a newbie to the blogosphere.

However, I am determined to get my little corner of the internet back on track so expect to see a lot more posts as I go into my summer break in about 5 weeks or so!

I didn't buy very much at IMATS but here are swatches of the two nail polishes I came home with.
First thing I did when I got into IMATS was race up the back of the hall to the Illamasqua counter. I've never tried any of their products before so I was definitely walking away with something. I was rather underwhelmed by the small selection of products until I saw the price tags. Two $35 nail polishes for $15?! Count me in!!

It took me a while to work out that the bulky square lids of these polishes actually come off revealing a smaller handle underneath. The brushes themselves are a little thinner that the OPI pro-wide which makes it easier not to make a mess of my tiny nails.

Propaganda is a very dark, almost black, blue jelly polish. I had a bit of trouble getting it even, as you can see in my swatch but it looks fantastic under a holographic top coat (see my next post).

Haha please excuse the massive difference in skintone on this one, I really am white as a vampire. I think I may have unwittingly changed the camera settings.

Victory is a cool toned gold shimmer that has a slightly frosty formula. You need to be careful the keep your brush stokes fairly straight or it will show in your finished mani, as you can see on my middle finger.

I can't really comment on the durability of these polishes just yet, only having played with them today, but I will include that info in my next post :)

The ABBW: A quick overview

So, currently I am sitting on my living room floor feeling slightly overwhelmed after taking photos of all my goodies and cataloguing business cards given to me by the lovely bloggers I met at the Australian Beauty Bloggers Weekend. I feel like I now have enough material to write about for several years and I have no idea where to start!
Firstly, a huge thank you to the lovely Jacie and Kimmi from You've Got Nail and The Plastic Diaries for organising the whole weekend. It was absolutely amazing and you ladies deserve all the credit :)

Being my very first blogging event, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. However all the bloggers at the event made me feel extremely welcome and I am looking forward to meeting up with some of them again soon.

This weekend was also my very first trip to the International Make-Up Artist Trade Show! It was brilliant to have so many different brands in the one place and be able to speak with representatives about their products.

Goodness knows I never expected to have to lug this many bags home!

Also thank you to the wonderful sponsors of the ABBW who were so very generous and I just don't know where to start with all of these lovely goodies! 

But as this is a nail polish blog, here is a sneak peek of all the polishes that came home with me.

Excepting the Illamasqua polishes which I purchased from IMATS, these were all provided by the sponsors of the event.

Did anyone else make it to IMATS on the weekend? I'd love to know your thoughts!